Musings of a Product Manager

Friday Aug 28, 2009

FlightCaster - AWS-Powered Flight Delay Prediction - Cool idea, I'll give it a shot on my next flight. Blurb in story about it running on AWS and being built on a budget less than $1M. I'm not sure I'd call less than 60 minutes only "slightly delayed" though! Also interesting the web-site is free, iPhone app is $4.99, but then BlackBerry app is $9.99.

Dear Apple: Where’s Facebook 3.0? - If getting Facebook 3.0 out sooner will result in selling more iPhones and iPod Touches, Apple cares. If not, they don't care about how quickly or even if apps get approved. There are over 50,000 apps now and that is what they market. And there is an existing Facebook app there already. What difference does it make to the general population and thus their market, the consumer, if a few don't make it or this new Facebook app takes a little while? Have we not learned that yet? Further, if Apple were to give preferential treatment to approving this app quicker, that would only serve to set precedent that if you announce submission to the world you get better treatment. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually drag their feet on this one to set an example.